The Syria Conflict, for dummies.

[daiman]

There has been some kind of embargo on syria for a long time that sryia has to rely on its own products. That is why the people are poor. What is happening in syria right now would turn syria into iraq and libya.

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

Dictatorships are weak and feeble. The leader may be powerful in his own country and can do whatever he wants, but dictatorships have weak economies, and weak economies mean an underfunded, badly trained, badly equipped military. Dictatorships also lack legitimacy and their troops have low morale as a result, and if fear of the dictator is removed from the equation will desert or surrender en-masse.

The civil war in Syria has revealed the Syrian Army to be little more than an Alawite tribal militia, good for beating up grannies and murdering children, not so good for pitched gun battles.

A strong, democratic and free Syria is the Israeli nightmare scenario.

Typical western garbage rhetoric. A bad dictatorship is weak and feeble, a good dictatorship outstrips every form of government known to man - even democrappy. Just because "democracy" has worked out for you guys doesn't mean it is automatically applicable to the rest of the world with different histories, cultures and psychologies. For instance, democracy is disastrous for somalia because, as a a people, we are generally fractious, unruly and lazy.

Isreal and its instruments should heed this advice,

let sleeping dogs lie.


when you burst open the jails, you have chaos
from chaos comes opportunity.

who knows what can come out of such chaos? a similiar development to hezbollah?

even the americans were surprised by some units in fallujah that displayed much greater tactical skill than their rangers and special forces. they were surprised to discover they were regular iraqi militia not even ex- revolutionary guard.

so imagine what chaos could produce?

right now a smart person in these arab regimes knows that the best way to survival is to act like an idiot.
if you show too much intelligence you will suffer in your career and it could get you killed.

in the future? who knows what can happen.

How come chaos has been so awful for us then?

[gurey25]

The arabs come from a more ordered society and in chaos would strive
Towards a different flavour of order.

The somalis natural state is anarchy.
We are not striving for order because order is the stranger
Some strange creature introduced by colonialists and it hasnt seeped ibto ou
Minds yet

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

The arabs come from a more ordered society and in chaos would strive
Towards a different flavour of order.

The somalis natural state is anarchy.
We are not striving for order because order is the stranger
Some strange creature introduced by colonialists and it hasnt seeped ibto ou
Minds yet

True. It will be painfully and bloody when someone eventually manages to establish order. The only way left is for somalis to be traumatized into civilisation. Apparently, two decades of war, famine, social disintegration and political/economic stagnation are not enough.

[James Dahl]

Typical western garbage rhetoric. A bad dictatorship is weak and feeble, a good dictatorship outstrips every form of government known to man - even democrappy. Just because "democracy" has worked out for you guys doesn't mean it is automatically applicable to the rest of the world with different histories, cultures and psychologies. For instance, democracy is disastrous for somalia because, as a a people, we are generally fractious, unruly and lazy.

Name one dictatorship that has been a success. Even South Korea only boomed because the country was so screwed up that just taking IMF loans and building basic infrastructure was enough to jumpstart the economy.
Every dictatorship has crumbled from the weight of its own ineptitude or been overthrown after their people get tired of their incompetence.

[Shirib]

Typical western garbage rhetoric. A bad dictatorship is weak and feeble, a good dictatorship outstrips every form of government known to man - even democrappy. Just because "democracy" has worked out for you guys doesn't mean it is automatically applicable to the rest of the world with different histories, cultures and psychologies. For instance, democracy is disastrous for somalia because, as a a people, we are generally fractious, unruly and lazy.

Name one dictatorship that has been a success. Even South Korea only boomed because the country was so screwed up that just taking IMF loans and building basic infrastructure was enough to jumpstart the economy.
Every dictatorship has crumbled from the weight of its own ineptitude or been overthrown after their people get tired of their incompetence.

Stalin, crazy, evil but he built up the USSR to its greatness

[gurey25]

Typical western garbage rhetoric. A bad dictatorship is weak and feeble, a good dictatorship outstrips every form of government known to man - even democrappy. Just because "democracy" has worked out for you guys doesn't mean it is automatically applicable to the rest of the world with different histories, cultures and psychologies. For instance, democracy is disastrous for somalia because, as a a people, we are generally fractious, unruly and lazy.

Name one dictatorship that has been a success. Even South Korea only boomed because the country was so screwed up that just taking IMF loans and building basic infrastructure was enough to jumpstart the economy.
Every dictatorship has crumbled from the weight of its own ineptitude or been overthrown after their people get tired of their incompetence.

James you forget that all the Asian tigers were dictatorships in one form or another during their economic boom.
Its only after they developed that they became democracies. Singapore is a well camouflaged dictatorship of the PAP party, the same with Malaysia, same with Indonesia. The only real democracy to form after development is Taiwan and Korea.
Even Japan was a dictatorship of the LDP from 49 till the mid 90s. thats nearly 50 years of rule by one party.
Even this is not the full reality in japan because the bureaucrats in the MITI ministry half had full control over direction of the economy since 49 and even now no prime minister has much impact on their decisions.

contrast this to the Philipines thats been a democracy.. an abject failure

[udun]

Dictatorships are weak and feeble. The leader may be powerful in his own country and can do whatever he wants, but dictatorships have weak economies, and weak economies mean an underfunded, badly trained, badly equipped military. Dictatorships also lack legitimacy and their troops have low morale as a result, and if fear of the dictator is removed from the equation will desert or surrender en-masse.

The civil war in Syria has revealed the Syrian Army to be little more than an Alawite tribal militia, good for beating up grannies and murdering children, not so good for pitched gun battles.

A strong, democratic and free Syria is the Israeli nightmare scenario.

There is also a dictatorship in the USA. Truth is no US president gets elected until he/she receives consensus from AIPAC. While in certain countries military forces are used to suppress the population, in the USA, the combination of media onslaught, controlled two-party politics, and unelected and unaccountable Federal Reserve decide the outcome of any US election. For instance, in 1992, AIPAC did not like George Bush Senior's Middle East policies. What had they done to kick him out of office and make sure he did not get re-elected? Two things: (1) Alan Greenspan raised the interest rate while the economy was in recession; this ensured many employers started laying people off and the unemployment rate soaring again; (2) the establishment media have unleashed their attacks on him. The combined Federal Reserve and media intervention forced former US President George Bush Senior out of office by ensuring he never came back in his re-election bit. Having "elections" does not mean you are not in a dictatorship

Back to the story, looking at the limited natural resources of Syria, this one Arab state has ensured its citizens free high-quality health-care and free education. According to the Index Mundi, Syria's unemployment rate in January 2011 was 8%, while the unemployment rate in oil-giant Saudi Arabia was 11% (source: http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?v=74&r=me&l=en). Even Israel, with its massive aid that comes from USA, EU, and Canada, still has 6% unemployment rate in 2010, when in Syria, there is no tangible aid that comes to that country. All of that development in Syria has been achieved when that country was kept under economic and military embargo from the western alliance and their middle eastern supporters for over four decades.

In this current conflict in Syria, this small country was manipulated from many angles including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, USA, EU, Canada, and Australia. It seems to any unbiased and reasonable observer that Syrian government is doing much better under the circumstances that it found herself. Keep in mind Syria today is the only independent Arab state that is still stating.

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

Typical western garbage rhetoric. A bad dictatorship is weak and feeble, a good dictatorship outstrips every form of government known to man - even democrappy. Just because "democracy" has worked out for you guys doesn't mean it is automatically applicable to the rest of the world with different histories, cultures and psychologies. For instance, democracy is disastrous for somalia because, as a a people, we are generally fractious, unruly and lazy.

Name one dictatorship that has been a success. Even South Korea only boomed because the country was so screwed up that just taking IMF loans and building basic infrastructure was enough to jumpstart the economy.
Every dictatorship has crumbled from the weight of its own ineptitude or been overthrown after their people get tired of their incompetence.

What are you talking about? South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesia all thrived under authoritarian regimes. In fact, on average SK's GDP growth was larger during the 70s and 80 than it is now. The only reason they became wealthier during the late 80s and 90s is because of the drastic economic measures and industrialisation taken by the park chung hee admin. Just becuause korea happens to be richer now and is a democratic nation doesn't neccesarily mean the latter led to the former.

[Alphanumeric]

Equilibrium. Perhaps with a helping hand in some instances.

[original dervish]

Dont forget S Korea told the IMF/World bank to ****off!
For many countries that has been the precursor to industrialisation and economic development.

[gurey25]

Dont forget S Korea told the IMF/World bank to ****off!
For many countries that has been the precursor to industrialisation and economic development.

South korea came back into line after the engineered 97 asian financial crisis.
Today they have close links with the IMF/World Bank.

Taiwan alone survives as independent from IMF dictats but they did this by balancing China against the Financial mafia's surrogates i.e US

Japans been gutted but they are surviving and positioning themselves for the new frontier of economy.
I think they will do quite well.

Malaysia is in a precarious situation and is barley keeping its economic independence , the price they chose to pay was slowing down of growth and re-assesment of their 2020 developed status goal.

The new government is full of "liberal idealogous" and i expect them to fully bow down and submit to the financial mafia as soon as their is another crisis.

[Enlightened~Sista]

Bashar Al Assad over these extremist Salafists

[Shirib]

Bashar Al Assad over these extremist Salafists

Are the opposition even religious leaders?

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

Bashar Al Assad over these extremist Salafists

E-Sista, I'm curious as to how you can reconcile your support for Bashar's brutal crack-down and your abhorrence for Saudi "human-rights abuses".